A loss for words

Now and then you have to try and do something different especially when you hope to spur people to think about things, much less take action on anything. And sometimes you just can’t beat the same horse over and over again. People get tired of it. And that goes for things people can agree on.

And I seem to be struggling with this intro, I had this idea a week ago, but have been pretty ill so it has been hard to sit down and dedicate some time. Anyway dear reader, as you know I am pretty wrapped up in wanting us to head in a better direction for our country. And we all know the political situation is crazier and crazier. One of my concerns in the back of everything I do is we are not just losing democracy, but also our humanity. It just isn’t the constant bickering and name calling both in Congress and all the website postings, but in general.

Our constitution and the country’s potential should bode well for the whole of humanity, but lately our country seems to have lost a value system. And yes I know money has driven much of our country’s growth and attitudes, yet we have always had some advent of the human condition in mind when things changed. Sometimes change was harsh such as the civil war or the civil rights movement or the labor movements of the late 1800’s, but something better developed. Nowadays though we seem to be going backward.

I am going to write a short story free style on this blog. I do not profess it will change the world, but to give you a different approach in talking about where things are headed in our world. I have my ideas on it, and I know how it will end, but I am going to write it every now and then straight up, no editing and as of right now there has not been one word put on paper. So randomly you are going to get installments until completed. I am not going to edit as I go along except for general spelling and grammar. A while back I posted something called the Paranoid posts where I took certain scenarios in the world and took them to an extreme conclusion. This will not be like that at all, but the story will be taking one path how I see humanity headed unless we start making changes. This is completely fiction and is based on the very near future.  Anytime you see a blog with the title below it will have an excerpt of the developing story. I may do a second one also. There will also be regular blog posts in between the story posts. So here goes.

A Loss for words

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She woke up thinking things were greatly different than when she was with him. She knew this was going to be the case, but she just didn’t realize what the differences would be.

She first thought it would be loneliness, but overall she is quite happy with herself. The money was never going to be a problem. He left her plenty. She is smart so she knew she could manage the money through the years. And it had been a few years since he died and since she is still relatively young, now in her forties, she knows her life by herself will go on for quite a few more. Right now she is okay, maybe down the road she may want another person in her life. And it isn’t like she is living on an island.

Her small three bedroom house in an older working class neighborhood was fine originally. They had picked it out together when he first found out he was seriously ill. He wanted to do so much for her. She had always been simple so she did not need anything fancy. And she didn’t want to be bothered with gated communities, or high rise communities. She loved gardening and reading. She really did. Not many people her age did anymore, but she enjoyed quiet and both those activities gave her great joy.

The neighborhood looked the same, sort of. Nowadays since most houses were rent houses they were not kept up like they use to be. And she had to be careful. She learned that she couldn’t make the front of her house to nice. People noticed and not the right people. So the front yard was somewhat bare, grass lawn and a few rose bushes up against the house. And never in full bloom, she watered them enough to keep them going, but never enough where they stood out majestically.

She was lucky the house came with a large 8 foot privacy fence and for all appearances on the outside it looked like it was getting old mainly because she never had it painted. On the inside of the back yard though was a very luscious garden and no lawn. The backyard had walkways through a variety of plants, flowers, and a small garden for growing vegetables and spices.

The inside of the house was essentially a small kitchen, the bedroom where she slept, and then walls and walls of books lined the rest of the rooms. There were chairs and tables in each room so whenever she felt like reading she could just pick a book and lose track of time for days. This suited her well.

He had loved her.

He had been married twice before and was already close to 60 when she met him. His first wife was very self-centered. He tried to make the marriage work, but she graved attention and since he was starting his own business he really just didn’t have the time for her the way she wanted. They had two children. He loved his children, but she poisoned them against him. Some of it was his own fault. He worked all the time so she spent the day with them telling them how their Father didn’t care since he was never home. When they got older they never communicated with him until they found out he was dying. Then they came around and they would never leave.

His second family had died in a car crash. His wife and their two children were killed in a freak accident with a semi-truck on the highway. The driver had fallen asleep in the middle of the day and crashed into the back of their car going about 70. Traffic had backed up in the city. She had nowhere to go from what witnesses could tell. It was just unfortunate she was the last car in the back up when the truck slammed into their car. He was distraught for a long time. His business had been doing well and he had great people working for him that kept it going. Also he received a large sum of money from the accident, yet at this point nothing mattered to him anymore. His second wife was so different and so loving compared to his first wife. He had almost committed suicide a couple of times right after the accident.

He survived for years until he met her. She brought him back to life. They had five wonderful years together. He became reengaged with his business and it thrived. He gave large sums of money to various charities at her suggestion. He was able to plan for her. The doctors gave him about 6 months to live when they diagnosed him. It turned about to be too correct. He re wrote his will giving some to his first children, some to charities, reinvested some so the business could continue without him, and the rest to her. He bought her the house before he died along with the furniture and some security aspects that of late were very handy. At first she thought it was a bit much, but he felt like he needed to make sure she was safe forever. So she relented, now she was grateful.

Not having people come by to do any work around the house is a blessing. She only trusted a few people. The neighborhood was run more like the old immigrant neighborhoods of over 100 years ago. There was a boss man for each neighborhood and they had their workers. She knew who the boss was for their neighborhood and he knew who she was. He was never certain, but suspected there was more to her than she let on. He was always milling about or having his people follow her to the store. 

Most people that lived in the neighborhood owed the boss something. Rents were extravagant for the houses and most people were forced out. Turnover in the neighborhood constant. Yes there were police and elected officials, but everyone knew they were just there for show. This let people think they still lived in a democracy because you still got to vote. Of course voting was a privilege and only certain people could vote; like it mattered. And since most people didn’t have an education the charade of a democracy was becoming less important every year.

She had heard in some neighborhoods it still mattered, but everywhere you had to be privileged to vote. She knew that the candidates were handpicked at all levels. Even the Presidency was a show for the masses. The only thing that mattered was which boss was more powerful. And this changed regularly. Turf wars were common. People backed their current boss because you never knew what you were going to get if things changed. She avoided this world and glad he did pass away before these changes took place. He always cared what happened. He was always a news junkie and knew what was going on all over the world. He would not have survived anyway.

The days, then the months, and now the years were passing. She watched children grow up. They were rarely the same children. Some came and went, most went, to move to another neighborhood and then move on again. Education was a term people used. There were still schools and most children went till 6^th grade. At that point the standardized tests were administered for the children. Most of them were sent to be trained in the military so they could be ready for the various wars at 16. The survivors were starting to come back at age 30 or 40 to unemployment or if lucky some in descript service job. A very lucky few were sent to be trained for technical employment. In her neighborhood this was a very lucky few. And then every now and then one might be sent somewhere special. They had some talent that needed to be utilized for upper class or to become part of the upper class. Or so they said. Other children just disappeared. Some cute girl or boy that was seen by someone.  They were never long for this world. Yet no one did anything for these children.

To be continued

I am still working on this so if you have any thoughts or comments you can always email me at dallasareaopinion@gmail.com